Rescripts

Rescripts (Lat. rescripta), answers of the popes and emperors to questions in jurisprudence officially propounded to them. Rescripta principis were one of the authoritative sources of the civil law, and consisted of the answers of the emperor to those who consulted him, either as public functionaries or as individuals, on questions of law. They were often applied for by private persons, more especially women and soldiers, to solve their doubts or grant them privileges. The rescripts directed to corporate and municipal bodies were known as Pragmaticæ sanctiones, a name which has found its way into the public law of Europe (see PRAGMATIC SANCTION). Rescripts might gradually come to have the force of law, in so far as their determinations in particular cases were of general application.